Great Gummi Project 2
by Steve McCue for £10.00

I saved my buddy Powder until the very end. I watched his cute, pale, little head poking out above the rest of the gummi magma as he slowly sinks, in sort of a Terminator 2-esque death scene. I felt no sorrow as I watched him go, as I felt he was going to a better place, a place where all gummis are the same color and consistency.

Soon enough (about 10 minutes on low) the gummis were all melted, and the magma turned clear. It's all shiny and uniform in color, but still vaguely menacing, and I was expecting it to leap out of the pan and attach itself to my face. My spatula was well and truly stuck to the stovetop at this time, thanks to the crazy-glue consistency of the magma. A word of warning: as anyone who's worked with molten sugar knows, getting this stuff on bare skin is horrifically uncomfortable to say the least. It's really, really hot, and it clings to your skin, so tread carefully when pouring.

I was all by my lonesome while I was cooking, but managed to set the camera's timer to capture an action shot of the very first gummi pour. I looks like liquid emeralds, and I figure this is pretty much what baker's porn looks like.

The magma will try to get away from you as you pour, especially when the sides of the stream cool. They'll create thick channels that will guide the still-runny magma from the pan, but will eventually detach and fall onto your honey bear in a sticky mess. Keep your spatula moving, and if you've got some sort of funnel, that might work as well.

From this point, just repeat the process with the remaining colors, put the caps on, and toss 'em all in the refrigerator overnight. The following day they looked like this.

I used an X-ACTO knife to slice through the honey bear containers, and it cut through them like butter. Apparently the gummi mixture was tough enough to resist being cut along with the plastic. So, even when I poked through, the gummi sort of flexed out of the way and then sprung back into shape when the knife passed. So, here's the final product.

The most difficult part of the whole exercise was getting the small gummis to stand up in front of the big ones long enough to take a picture. You'll find that the gummi substance tastes infinitely better (sweeter?) after it's been melted down and then allowed to solidify again. But, like I said, it also gets significantly tougher, so it's quite a workout for the teeth and jaw. I bit the head off of the first one I made (just because, that's why) and it took about 10 minutes to break it down enough to swallow.

So, I hope everyone enjoyed my addition to the pantheon of Great Gummi Projects.